Operator of Negation

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• Imperative#Operator of Negation and the Negative Imperative

Operator of Negation is the concept Eric Gans uses in The Origin of Language to account for the kind of “negative ostensive” that would be the first proto-declarative sentence. “Operator of negation” is a term within logic and it is important in our context because Gans uses it to refer to the kind of open-ended prohibition (like “don’t smoke”) that occupies a kind of middle ground between the imperative (which must be obeyed or defied within the temporal frame of the imperative itself—if I say “pass me the salt” you haven’t complied with my request if you move the salt towards where I was sitting hours later, after I’ve gone to sleep) and the declarative, which creates a “reality” that is taken to subsist beyond any particular utterance.